Okay, sometimes when writing these articles I am slightly amazed at the subject.  Sure, stuff like Doom for an ATM machine is “weird” and clearly in the “why bother” category but others, others make my jaw drop.  That is the case we are seeing here, my jaw is on the floor at Netflix being ported to the Nintendo Entertainment System, of all things.  The really wild thing is, it works!

Just remember, this is the Nintendo Entertainment System, an 8-bit 25 out of 64 colors onscreen platform, and we are talking about movies and television shows.  By their nature, movies and television shows, even cartoons, are made up of tons of color.  Right off the bat, this port is losing that so forget it.

Okay, back to the port, which is part of Netflix’s annual Hack Day event.  Guy Cirino, Carenina Motion Developing and Alex Wolfe created a special cartridge for the Nintendo Entertainment System that allows streaming of the popular service.  This cartridge is named DarNES, no reason is given for this name.  Availability of this cartridge is also unknown at this time.

The menu system appears to be across the bottom of the screen with a free moving cursor.  Moving left or right will advance/reverse the list of entertainment available.  Clicking on one will bring the familiar menu for viewing the show or adding/removing it from your list of shows to watch.  The really cool thing is, there is even an attempt by the NES to show a graphic representing the show you are looking at on the right.  On the left side of the screen is text describing the show and the aforementioned menu system is below, on the bottom of the screen.

This makes me wonder, could we possibly see a port of DarNES, or similar, for the Game Boy Advance with a Wi-Fi antenna built in?  That would be great as the GBA has the color palette to do it justice.

What do you think of this hack?

Source: Real Game Reviews via Reddit

Carl Williams

It is time gaming journalism takes its rightful place as proper sources and not fanboys giving free advertising. If you wish to support writers like Carl please use the links below. https://www.paypal.me/WCW https://www.patreon.com/CarlWilliams